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I still don't understand how cases like this are brought up. It seems to me like random people are targeted at random times. I see stories like this every day, not about Darknet specifically but about rulings against file sharers and pirates. Could anyone shed light on how a select few people are singled out of the masses of people who fileshare.

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In this case, the defendant added the anti-piracy monitoring company as a friend.

I don't understand how these company's are legal. It just seems to me that in order to get a list of illegal sharers they "must" at least attempt to download or share the copyrighted material. So why aren't they are just as guilty as they people they report?

In most cases they are authorized (and paid by) the legal copyright holders to find violators. At least in US most cases are brought by industry organizations.

I heard (and believe it's true) that in Germany, lawyers are given the right to bring cases against law breakers (maybe only civil) with no client, without support or even knowledge of the "victim". Paid on a bounty system. Idea being all these lawyers are incentivized to go out and deter crime.

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